Corey Robin and Jodi Dean again.
previously. Connecting to this

Solidarity,  among members of a group is not a decision; it's a reflex. The decision would be to refuse it, to chose to be disloyal, forms of which will make you  a "rat", a "snitch", or a "scab".

"What's the difference between a religion and a cult?" My usual and immediate answer is "time". The question is usually treated as a one-liner and I doubt I'm the first to reply as I do. But another way to put it is to say that for most adherents religion isn't a choice. For most Catholics, Catholicism is not an "intentional community". It's one they're born into.  The working class is not an intentional community. Workers are in the community of workers whether they like it or not. Unions put limits on personal freedom because the only defense of workers is collective.  Bourgeois liberalism and leftism, especially the American versions is the politics of idealism and choice. Joseph Raz says we have a choice whether or not to have children, ignoring that children don't have a choice whether or not to have parents. His blinkered argument is an object lesson in the relation of methodological and cultural –ideological– individualism, as obvious and unexamined as the crossover from the optimism of science to the optimism in politics.

The best short discussion of US politics I've had recently was with my second generation Polish immigrant boss. Talking about healthcare, social democracy and why Sanders is an idiot. "Scandinavia isn't politics! It's culture!" He's fully in favor all every standard social democratic policy. He'd be happy in Norway. But his father moved to the US.

Right now millions are out of work and worried about food and liberals are worried about fake news. The right wing base is screaming to open the economy. Corey Robin –Princeton and Yale– brags about teaching at CUNY, and writes about communism (and the same damn book). Buppies in the NYT say the protests are about race. Self-interest still means wanting to feel good about yourself.
New tag for Piketty

Credit where credit is due.

Pulitzer Prize for "Commentary" has gone to...
...Bret Stephens, Thomas Friedman, Charles Krauthammer and, this year, Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Solidarity (repeats)

An outraged Davis, who has fought for justice in his sister's murder for years, had trouble calming himself and had to step out of the courtroom. He later told the Boston Globe he owed Judge Casper an apology for his behavior, yet was livid at the suggestion he was an informant: "I’d take a bullet before I’d ever incriminate anyone.”

Apparently, accusations of being a tattle-tale are worse than accusations of murder.